Connecting Students’ Informal Language to More Formal Definitions

Jon Davis

How student-generated terminology for the y-intercept evolved within one Standards-based classroom. It also discusses the teacher’s role in this evolution as well as students’ understanding of this terminology within different function representations, and it presents ways teachers can help students develop mathematically precise definitions. The article is a description of a qualitative research project including video tapes, transcriptions, and student artifacts.

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